With the arrival of Peak Oil, the curtain has closed on Act 1 of the drama Petroleum Man. What will happen in Act 2? Chekhov said, "If there's a gun on the wall at the beginning of the play, by the end it must go off." In the world's nuclear arsenal are many guns on the wall. If life copies art, will there be an Act 3 in which the players, having learned their lesson the hard way, live sustainably? To explore these and other questions... FTW's Act 2 Blog. Read, comment, take heart! Orkin

11 comments:

It's not just fusion! Nuclear power is relentlessly promoted as the answer to our energy problem and climate-change problem. But construction costs have gone into the stratosphere. Check out this article, for example.

http://www.washingtonexaminer.com/economy/ap/48689532.html

As we all know, when oil gets more expensive, so does everything else. Which is just another way of underscoring the ironic dependence of nuclear power on fossil fuels. The handwriting is on the wall: There will be no nuclear renaissance.

When Jenna credits Rice Farmer with a link, I usually click because he picks up some really vital stuff. TomDispatch is a valuable resource, and Frida Berrigan's article on the cyber-military-industrial complex covered some interesting ground. But it raises questions about programming.

The author is a daughter of famous ex-priest Philip Berrigan, who stood up against the Vietnam War. She is a Senior Research Associate at the World Policy Institute, an internationalist group whose Chairman Emeritus is Walter Eberstadt, a partner at Lazard Freres and Company. (Steve Rattner, now Counselor to Treasury Secretary Geithner, made millions as the number 2 man at Lazard.) The institute publishes World Policy Journal, to which Berrigan often contributes.

Berrigan also writes for In These Times, where she recently decried lavish military spending in this article . She is also a Senior Program Associate at the New America Foundation. This credential was mentioned at the end of the article, and I was curious about the organization.

Susan Chambers, Executive V.P of Wal-Mart, and Jonathan Soros each donate $25,000 per year. But big-time funding has come from the Rockefellers, the Gateses, Google’s Schmidt, the Ford Foundation, the Wal-Mart Foundation, McKinsey & Co., the William and Flora Hewlett Foundation and Citigroup. Steve Rattner, that Lazard exec now advising Geithner, also kicked in $25,000.

While I would not question Frida Berrigan’s sincerity, and have no reason to doubt her research, it seems obvious that, from the radicalism of her father (who poured his own blood on nuclear missiles in the ‘70s), we have lived through a degradation of the peace movement into a smiley-face division of The System run by Wall Street regulars, who fund peace research through their charitable foundations.

The question I have is whether “safe” parts of The Truth are not being selectively allowed to circulate, while the fact of ongoing world domination by TPTB (and the inevitable connection to violent aggression which keeps that going) is being deliberately damped down. Curiously, Microsoft is a major cyber-defense contractor. I cannot believe that its owners spent a million dollars on a think tank that stood any chance of eliminating its business with the Defense Department, or even of revealing details that would empower citizens at the expense of its broader interests.

The internationalist tendency of Team Obama is unmistakable, and maybe that’s a good thing. We’re all fried from eight years of Amerika Uber Alles. But the internationalist agenda is (despite its democracy rhetoric) primarily a child of global capital, which does not intend to cease exploiting the world because nationalism is discredited.

Peace activism by global capitalism may actually prepare populations for the end of nationalist government. But whether we'll be happier for that is questionable. The deeper problem is not being dealt with by Berrigan of New America.

As the veneer continues to crack and peel off the façade that covers the true face of America in glacier sized sheets, we now have a better look at collective man behind the curtain of our Fourth Estate. To say “he” is suffering from E.D. (editorial dysfunction) would be an understatement. “Can’t get no satisfaction” or answers from the MSM? GWB gives the reasons why.The Four Reasons the Mainstream Media Is Worthless “There are four reasons that the mainstream media is worthless.1. Self-Censorship by Journalists, 2. Censorship by Higher-Ups, 3. Drumming Up Support for War AND 4. Censorship by the Government”“…Air Force Colonel and key Pentagon official Karen Kwiatkowski wrote: I have been told by reporters that they will not report their own insights or contrary evaluations of the official 9/11 story, because to question the government story about 9/11 is to question the very foundations of our entire modern belief system regarding our government, our country, and our way of life. To be charged with questioning these foundations is far more serious than being labeled a disgruntled conspiracy nut or anti-government traitor, or even being sidelined or marginalized within an academic, government service, or literary career. To question the official 9/11 story is simply and fundamentally revolutionary. In this way, of course, questioning the official story is also simply and fundamentally American…” “…If journalists do want to speak out about an issue, they also are subject to tremendous pressure by their editors or producers to kill the story. The Pulitzer prize-winning reporter who uncovered the Iraq prison torture scandal and the Mai Lai massacre in Vietnam, Seymour Hersh, said: ‘All of the institutions we thought would protect us -- particularly the press, but also the military, the bureaucracy, the Congress -- they have failed. The courts . . . the jury's not in yet on the courts. So all the things that we expect would normally carry us through didn't. The biggest failure, I would argue, is the press, because that's the most glaring....”

“…We cannot just leave governance to our "leaders", as "The price of freedom is eternal vigilance" (Jefferson). Similarly, we cannot leave news to the corporate media. We need to "be the media" ourselves…”

Re the criminalization of organic farmers, you may wish to Google "Codex Alimentarius" and then settle in for a good fright. It dovetails with the stuff that eyeballs put up on the Rockefeller/Gates seed bank inside the Arctic Circle.

New World Order! Naw, just those fucking conspiracy wankers, that's all.

Eyeballs -- I'm flattered, but as with everything provided, readers have to consider the source, separate wheat from chaff, and go for the useful information. And of course you are obviously one of the people quite capable of that.

And now back to the everyday gloom of the monsoon season here in Japan...

Business editor Michael West of "The Sydney Morning Herald" (Australia), owned by Fairfax:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fairfax_Media

. . . threatens "Political action" against community currencies if they become "Too successful." Check out the short video segment on "A Current Affair" (Channel 9, Australia), titled "Town Prints Own Cash":

http://video.msn.com/?mkt=en-au&brand=ninemsn&tab=m164

And here's some more background on the "Baroon Dollar":

http://www.baroondollar.org/

. . . based in the rural town of Maleny, Queensland, Australia. I know one of the organisers of this new currency, he arranged (some time ago now), for Andrew McNamara MP (outspoken Qld MP on Peak Oil), to give a presentation to the local community on oil depletion. I stayed with him and his partner overnight, as Maleny's about 2 hours drive north of me. So hopefully, we can give Michael West even more indigestion when the concept spreads 2 hours south of Maleny . . .

It's June, and heat waves are already starting to engulf the US.http://www.usatoday.com/weather/news/2009-06-21-southern-heat_N.htmhttp://www.accuweather.com/mt-news-blogs.asp?partner=accuweather&blog=Weathermatrix&pgurl=/mtweb/content/Weathermatrix/archives/2009/06/unusual_heat_in_usual_places_1.asp

May I remind our community that a report released last September by the NextGen Energy Council ("Lights Out In 2009?") warned that unusually hot weather could strain the grid beyond the breaking point, resulting in brownouts or even blackouts. Watch this one carefully.

The Japanese government plans to guarantee about 80 percent of the repayment of a ¥200 billion (about US$2 billion) emergency loan to Japan Airlines to be extended by the government-backed Development Bank of Japan.

Already battered by last year's fuel prices, the airline has had major losses due to the light traffic caused by new flu.

Looks like us taxpayers in Japan will be on the hook for this one when fuel prices resume their upward march.